Safros sat, firmly bolted to his seat within the command deck of the Behemoth command walker, around him monitors flashed warnings and various status reports and command updates while the two pilots at the far end of the deck piloted the office block high death machine through a raging firestorm through orbit - and then waded through unit after unit of Immortal armour to this point.

Behind him, the captain of the mechanised monstrocity stood between two holotanks, each surrounded by command staff issueing orders and reports across the entire front - watching with a devil-eyed scrutiny as green labelled Scythian and Genoan units moved to engage red labelled Immortal units - the chaos and destruction outside hidden between holographic polygons and blinking lights.

As the Tarantula tanks, Orpheus SDHT's and various ground troops approched on all sides - the Behemoth reached the very edge of the tunnel entrance - a 35 degree incline as wide as two highways side by side that decended for miles under the ice - an Immortal fire corridor if there ever was one - the Captain once more returned to his control centre and issues an army-wide command through the radios of every soldier, tank and unit groundside.

"Attention all Scythian units - We are approaching the city entrance - the Behemoth units will descend first, all units follow our lead!" He then closed a channel and started too issue orders to the deck staff.

"Pilots, run all foot wheels at full reverse speed once we walk over the edge - keep the front two feet up to land when we reach the bottom of the shaft, and keep all weapons hot and ready to fire . . . take us down"

All three of the Behemoth super-walkers crossed the berth at the same time - the spider walkers suddenly taking massive Ion blasts from the Immortal Wraiths waiting at the bottom of the shaft - thier shields shrugging off each blow with a hammerfall as the first Behemoth crossed the egde of the incline and gravity started to take its pull - over 50 tonnes of combat walker was dragged down the shaft - the hyper-massive wheels at the end of each leg squealing at full reverse to control thier fall into the abyss - and thier front legs raised to slow thier fall at the end.

At the bottom of the shaft three Immortal Wraiths lurked, four legs ending in tank sized chainsaw legs, thier torsos bristling in spikes and spears to regulate and control thier electro-hull plating, and covered in guns - the largest being an oversized assault-Ion cannon that was set inside the walkers canine like head.

Each angular, jagged jaw of the Wraiths dropped as if they had been snapped loose - and then seperated into a split jaw to make room for the Ion Cannons - and then belched forth a lurid torrent of maroon coolant fluids as they charged and fired upwards at the inbound Behemoths charging down towards them at faster and faster speeds.

The first blast was shrugged off by the leading Behemoth - its shields held as a bloody insult against the Wraith - the second blast missed completely - the third pounded into, and then violently burst the shields of the rear Behemoth - and melted its bridge into molten slag within milliseconds - without its pilots, the entire spider walker tripped upon its front legs - turning over itself and ripping its own legs off at the joints, slamming into the cieling and then following behind its intact bretheren.

As an office block sized fireball of tumbling death.

The first Behemoth - now riding down on its own inertia at insane speeds, reached the bottom of the shaft - and the lead Wraith - slamming down with the force of a titan as each of its front feet broke the shoulders of the Wraiths front legs - titanium and steel crashed and shattered as the force of the Behemoths speed slammed through the Wraiths frame and shattered the concrete and ice beneath.

The Warlord-Commander of the Wraith picked himself up off of his console - about to order a flurry of commands to his own warrior-pilots to crush the insane Scythians that threw themselves at his lines, when his monitors displayed the four dual-barreled Scythian Heavy Laser cannons - all pointed at his screen.

The last thing he ever knew of this world was the blinding light of 8 heavy blasts ripping the head of the Wraith clean away, and then plowing through the rest of its insides, ripping apart the organ structure of weapon control nodules, power plant controls and CPU cores - belching fire out of every possible point in its armor, it then fell - an empty, dead husk.

The second Behemoth landed upon the next Wraith - attempting the tactics of the previous - only for the Wraith to fire its Ion cannon upwards at the Behemoth at the last moment - shattering its shields and halting its momentum - for both units to then collide.

Without the shields to take the brunt of the force - the Behemoth landed on the Wraith - and carried on straight through it - the forces of gravity spearing the Behemoth on the Wraith - as the Wraiths head went through the bridge - smearing all inside into a red paste against Immortal armour and Scythian hull plating - and violently rupturing the Ion cannon control system, which discharged arcs of static inside the Behemoths hull - violating the Anti-matter power plant and causing it too lose containment.

Blue streams of anti-matter poured downwards outside of thier containment units, melting armour plating away and melting both the Behemoth and the Wraith together - before both exploded under the strain - a pair of machine corpses hit the floor in a plethora of body, machine and circuitry parts.

The final Behemoth remains tumbled and smalled into the last Wraith - slamming it into the wall of the shaft and ripping one side of its Ion cannon cowling away.

Behind them - Orpheus SHDT's and Tarantula tanks followed at speed - and then tens of thousands of Marines behind them.

Lord Shadowscythe watched from the command deck of the Mantorok as the many-fold green and red markers in the holographic display panel swam around on another.

Thousands of men and ships reduced to floating green cubes, blue motion vectors and yellow fire-control cylinder paths, cutting, crossing and counter-crossing red sharks that took up the front of his vision.

Another blast reflected harmlessly off of the main view screen as an Immortal Assault Carrier was diced cleanly into five parts by a fellow Monarch class battleship and her Anti-matter Projector Cannons.

At first, everything seemed to have gone well - the element of surprise had forced a clean path through the Immortal defence fleet, bisecting it into two halves while the Orbital drop teams dropped off thier weapons of war, and then came about to face the enemy that had reformed around the main fleet.

The problem was that the Scythian fleets where well armed and had a slight technological and logistical advantage over thier enemy, but thier only combat had been simulated - and thier fleets had been set up as the breadbasket of the empire to keep an economy that almost imploded on itself a century ago from going supernova.

No matter how well armed you where, it was the ability of the troops under your command that turned the tide of a war - and unfortunatly for Lord Shadowscythe - his fleets and troops where nothing more than lambs wrapped in steel.

And now they where getting slaughtered.

The drop fleet had taken the full brunt of the Immortal defence fleets, whittling thier numbers down to 45% of thier original number - and now the main fleet was enveloped on three axis by Immortal capitol and super capitol ships.

Issueing a deft series of vocal commands and holographic motions, he ordered his fleet to move downwards - beneath the Immortal axis and to meet with the defence fleet to reform a firewall over the planets equatoral gravity well, using one group advancing to fire through the group reforming and keep a wall of fire on the Immortal bastards, buying the ground troops enough time to take the city, secure the objective and then spare the Behemoth walkers they had to Orbital suppression duty, enough guns to make the Immortals either flee or be blasted to atoms.

Just as the last of his commands where issued a young bridge officor turned from her console and yelled "Lord Shadowscythe! We are picking multiple Hyperspace exit jumps forming behind the fleet! Thier energy readings and formation suggests a Britannian Battlefleet with multiple Dreadnaught class vessels!"

True to form, dozens, and then hundreds of white lines slithered onto the holographic display - each one coming to a halt and berthing a Britannian warship, weapons hot and ready to fire.

"Holy shit . . . " Lord Shadowscythe said out loud, with fear across his face "Maidens of Scythia have mercy on our souls."

And then his world shook, slammed sideways, and erupted into etherial white flames.

Kerrus move forward through the wreckage of a Scythian Orpheus SHDT as he moved closer to the entrance to the tunnel, by now thousands of troops and vehicles had crossed into the abyss below, and the fighting had already become fierce as the reports of urban fighting had made thier way down the various communication channels that had not been cut off from orbit.

As he finally crossed the abyss into the tunnel he was stuck, suddenly by the sight of figures just out of the corners of his vision, mingled between the Scythian and Genoan infanty and vehicles all around him, he could only "just" see them . . . oily shapes too large to be men but too small to be vehicles moving all around him and the troops crossing into the city tunnel . . . forms without shapes that dissapeared from his vision the moment his eyes finally managed to catch sight of one.

All around him he began to sense a form of unease . . . anticipation almost of something that was to come, his vision darkened around him and he began to feel another presence creeping from the ice below, a node of something far greater and incomprehensible to himself has awoken and was now stretching vast, invisible tendrils - touching the minds and souls of mortal men on the ground and in the space above and finding the hatred it desired, hatred it could grow and manipulate into the seeds of an evil that had not touched this universe in over a billion years.

These young races would bend and break to its whim, and then it would spread once more . . . to devour, to conquer . . . and then when the time was right, it would return too . . .

Kerrus collapsed to the floor, the aftermath of a psionic overload burning out large chunks of his cereberal cortex, as a medic rushed to his side, and the world faded into darkness he could still see the oily shapes converging.

Hundreds of Hyperspace portals opened and closed in the reaches of space around the battle as Brittanian vessels flooded from all four sectors of Brittanian space into the pitched battle between the tratorous Scythians and the insidious Immortals. Fighters where launched, pulse cannons flared and blasted away at smaller Scythian ships while larger Thunder cannons gave out hammer blows against stressed and strained Scythian shields.

At the rear of the Brittanian forces the newest and most devious of the Britannians modernised arsenal arrived, as large as any dreadnaught but with almost a quarter of the mass, they where spindle-long vessels designed to carry the newest weapons at thier disposal into the battlefield, Phased Cavorite Cannons.

They turned thier bizzared tripled turreted cannons and opened fire, sending streams of raw nuclear fusion through the bizarre alien crystals that had been scraped through great effort off of the event horizons of black holes into the dimension known as the "Nega" - these chunks of another universe formed defensive skins around themselves in order to defend themselves - which could only be shattered through the direct use of formed and channeled fusion power . . . creating a beam capable of shredding any known material or shield in this universe.

Scythian vessels crumbled apart on a molecular level as the mighty Cavorite cannons opened fire, sending orange lance beams effortlessly through Monarch battleships and Gladiator carriers in the main group, while the Immortals sped away to deal with the smaller secondary force attempting to re-converge fromt he planets gravity well.

High Admiral Timkin stood atop the bridge of his personal command-flagship as he watched the Scythian vessels burn like pyres . . . all he had to do was wait until they finally succumbed and where atomized and his promotion was assured . . . today would be a good day to be a Britannion . . .

Lord Shadowscythe scraped himself up from the floor of the Mantorok, or at least what he had thought was the floor.

The room was dark, lit only by the flames of console screens that had shattered from the blast . . . and red globules floated through the air in front of him . . . along with disembodied limbs, chunks of burnt flesh and the giblet remains of the command staffa and admiralty members who had once stood upon the most coveted decks of one of the Empires precious Emperor Class Super-Battleships.

The Britannians had come to the Immortals aid and now his forces where lost and shattered, he himself was forced to pull his body away from the "floor" which was the side wall of the once populated bridge and pushed himself away.

Gravity was offline, the ship was silent other than the sounds of burning and pain, the distant thrumbing of the ships distant Anti-matter reactors had gone dead.

No holograms to light the bridge, no screens to guide his way, his eyes adjusted to a darkness of blood and smoke.

He coughed and spluttered, he must had inhaled smoke while he was unconcious . . . his voice rose above the sounds of burning "This is Lord Shadowscythe . . . is anyone alive in here?"

He span around in mid air, and noticed the red globules of blood where following him, he raised his hand to his temple and found that a large portion of his skin was missing, he must have been flayed, or burned, or worse . . . and he couldn't feel the pain . . . shock had taken its tole.

"Is anyone alive in here?!" He asked again, his voice hoarse and broken.

A distant coughing came from the far end of the bridge - on the lower level devoted to pilots and ensigns for the general running of the ship.

"Stay calm, I'm on my way to you!" He yelled as he shifted his weight and motioned towards an object he could use as a handhold, in this case the Holographic display he had been watching the battle upon had become a place from which he could navigate his way through the bridge.

As he passed the precipice from the upper half of the bridge to the lower he suddenly realised where all the rest of the blood on the bridge had been coming from. One member of the bridge staff had somehow been half decapitated as he had slammed into a monitor screen, instead of smashing on impact the screen had caught him at an oblique angle and had become a gillotine into his face, cutting everything off the top half of his head from the eyeballs up. Another had been devoured by his station as the support struts from the floor and wall has crushed around him - mingled remains of a man that would now be closer in relation to mincmeat still eaked blood into the air in all directions as the shattered workstation continues to burn around the charred remains.

Another had been thrown through a display screen and into a holographic display bowl - his body was nothing but shredded remains and shattered glass, another burned beyond all recognition - the bastard must have died screaming long before Lord Shadowscythe had awoken.

And there, in amongst the remains of a staircase between the upper and lower levels, was an Ensign. Young and female, but her features obscured by smoke, blood and tears, she had been thrown backwards by the force of the blast that had knocked gravity offline and then into the solid metal stairs that had sheaved into her legs like a cheese grater - stopping only once they hit the bone beneath the knees - leaving two sheared lumps of flesh, muscle and sinew and the remains of what used to be her lower legs, useless and dangling over the egde of the stairs.

She coughed and groaned, shifting in and out of conciousness as Lord Shadowscythe drifted his way towards the ensign and managed to stop himself before colliding into the woman.

"Its okay, I need you to focus on the sound of my voice" He started, still as rough as hell from inhaling smoke "I will get you out of here" he said - partly for the womans benefit but mostly for his own.

His fleet was dead, the battle in space surely lost and the battle on the ground was lost to him now.

One of the few lords left in the Scythian Empire needed something, anything to save - and she was going to be it.

(Colette - Yeah, in my own version of brik-cannon there are only 5 Emperor Class Super-Battleships in the entire Empire - one for each of the core worlds . . . but as I have expanded my own story to the point where the Emperor dissapeared with 3 entire fleets a year and a half ago and since then the Scythian Office of Naval Intelligence S.O.N.I is basically in charge of the empire . . . cannon and story writing is flexible at best . . . it could have been an Emperor class built in secret or one of any other things, just don't take ths piss thats all.)

- - - - - - -

Loveless was on a rampage, and he was loving every second of it.

Tanks and troops of both sides rampaged through the now rapidly destroyed city as Scythian troops bolted into Immortal traps, entire buildings rigged with high explosives or black hole grenades levelled entire lines of the enemy, who where then treated to the waiting guns of Terrorkhan. He moved like silk over steel, using his psionic skills to hide himself from the enemies sight as he moved between them, ripping of limbs with his adamantite blade and shredding bodies whole with well placed shots from his own assault cannon.

The battle in orbit had shifted in thier favour as well, as the reports came down from the data networks in orbit - the Scythians where going to be dealt the single most embassaring defeat of the early war - one that would grind thier spirit down for years to come and make every single one of thier allies doubt thier ability to holde off thier Immortal foes . . . and then they would either turn or die.

He turned, he lunged - and his blade sank through the titanium skin of another SIBAS equiped trooper, jamming between the armoured plates and sinking deep into his victims throat.

Another Scythian that died a silent scream, drowning in his own blood.

"Scythian frontal advance is being halted - all units move forward, make them bleed." The voice was cold, emotionless and almost mechanical - the best aspects of an experience Terrorkhan commander at work.

All around Loveless, the troopers moved forward - victory was coming, and he could almost taste it . . .

And that was when the first Terrorkhan exploded.

He stopped for a moment, confused - even in the midst of battle he should have seen the shot - even if it was a sniper, the Scythians use those bastard laser rifles or Anti-matter munitions . . . this was . . . different.

Before he had the chance to even move up, see where the shot had come from - another Terrorkhan fell to the floor, his head had exploded from the inside out, showering bits of blood, brain and skull in every direction.

Then the next, his torso shattered outwards as if he had been ground zero of a grenade to the chest.

Then another, then another.

The Terrorkhan around Loveless where numbered in thier droves, they formed up fire teams and scanned for targets, lining up fire corridors and scanning for targets.

Then they all died together.

Hundreds of blasts, Terrorkhan fell to the floor in showers of blood, limb flying in every direction and the cries of pain and death - the slaughter was short . . . less than a minute before Loveless was the last one alive in his entire line . . . and possibly the entire city block.

As he moved slowly, projecting himself out of the mind of every nearby creature as best he could, he had seen the nature of the wounds.

Each Terrorkhan had exploded, from the inside out - lumbs of cauterised flesh in the middle of each wound - followed by a massive exit wound.

Something haqd teleported already moving projectiles inside each trooper . . . and the momentum had torn each of them apart.

Only then did he notice the screams coming from all around him, the data natworks of the Immortal forces had dropped dead, the Scythians radio links had dropped dead - and now both sides where being slaughtered by a force they had no idea how to comprehend.

Over a year ago, he had abandoned his people, taking forces that would have been needed in the battles to come - to find a way to stop the bloodshed predicted by a future that had never happened.

He followed a mixture of messages from universes that had never been, or where the same, but different, or messages left from the past that should never had existed.

A message from himself, to himself - to kill Lord Warhead before the entire Scythian Empire crumbled around him.

The Wreckage of an Emperor class battleship that had never been comissioned, from over 17,000 years ago - found in the event horizon of a black hole - its computers filled with the events of the Immortal war - half of which had never been.

A mixture of ancient prophesy and quantum entanglement theory - a constant battle of shifting futures and realities that had over a hundred AI's working endlessly without stopping to comprehend each action and inaction to save his people from a fate worse than the coming fire.

It had only been a year and a half since he - the prophesied "Last and First" Emperor of the Great Scythian Empire has abandoned his people to gather his loyalists behind the backs of this own Office of Naval Intelligence to build his arsenal - to come to this point.

"KINGUNDERTHEMOUNTAIN has been confirmed my liege" a Deck hand reported from the lower bridge - the Fist of Scythia, the strongest and most powerful of all the Emperor Class Super battleships drifted in deep space, along with over 5000 other vessels, some Scythian, some Assyrian, others from Tosc and the other nations that had devoted vessels and time to this final cause.

"Has the beast awakened?" He asked . . . by now he felt so old - his efforts to save the future from an utter multiversal collapse had caused him age beyond his years, but now the time had finally come to make his move.

"Psychic eminations have been confirmed on the YED-3 scale and rising" the deck hand returned, the Emperor waved his hand and motioned the man back to his duties.

"So, what do you make of this?" The Emperor asked the waiting holo-tank, which then sprang to life into a cascade of colours.

"I have been sifting through the data for some time - but if we stop the beast here and now, then we should save ourselves a year at best before the cascade event occours" the Stream of colours returned - one of the Emperors first causes was to aqquire the AI of a Goliath unit onboard the battleship that had encountered an Undead force so long ago . . . the creature of pure digital thought had named itself "The Entity" and had since been one of his closest allies and partners.

"Yes, but be aware that both Lord Shadowscythe and Harkins are in the field of fire - both of them must survive to the cascade event"

"And are there any others?"

"One of Warheads shards will be present, I do not know where - but it would be advantagious to us if he does not survive . . . and High Admiral Timken of the Britannian Empire, he is a rouge element . . . he does not factor into our equasions."

"Then we make our move" The Emperor stated once more.

"We make our move - the weapon will be ready once FTL transition is complete." The Entity replied with a sense of finality.

The Emperor swallowed the bile rising from his stomach - he knew what needed to be done . . . he was about to commit genocide on a scale not seen so soon in the war, Immortals, Britannians, Genoans and Scythians alike where about to pay the price needed to save the galaxy.

When this war was over, he was going to make sure he never slept again.

(Something like that - but in the mean time - never briung power armour to a knife fight, unless you are fighting an Immortal . . . )

- - - -

Harkins ducked for cover as another SIBAS suited soldier next to him exploded apart, titanium plates and blood flying in every direction . . . the command and control networks had gone down, jammed by an unknown source, apparently the Genoan troopers that had been drafted into the fight where falling unconcious left, right and centre - bleeding from the eyes, ears or nose - some of them screaming thier way into a coma about some kind of monsterous terror that had awoken, others drifted into an early death while whispering "itknowswearehere,itknowswearehere,itknowswearehere" until thier cereberal cortexes burst into flames.

He moved from cover to cover as a Tarantula tank burst into flames - a dozen blasts ripped outwards from the six legged tank without a single entry wound as it collapsed into the concrete . . . in the distance an Orpheus SHDT slammed into the ground, its shields still online, but its crew had been turned into paste inside a factory built metal coffin . . . in the distance he could see the Behemoth command and control walker backing up as troops and tanks fell all around it, its shields where stressed almost to breaking, apparently holding back some kind of unseen attack from every direction . . .

. . . but Harkins could not see a single enemy solider, or tank - in fact as he moved forwards all he could see where dead Terrorkhan.

Thousands of dead Terrorkhan.

He moved through buildings filled with Immortal troops who had never even gotten to the fight, reserve forces that had been meant to wipe out the Scythians as they made the final push into the city . . . the bastards had planned for everything.

"Well, everything except this" he muttered to himself as he moved through another building, corpses and blood splattered the walls.

His mind filled the gaps his eyes couldn't - the details seemed to slide.

"So, Scythian - you could see me . . . this will be interesting . . . " the unknown assailant, Loveless . . . the name uttered through Harkins mind.

"I never knew the Scythian Empire had psionics . . . even low level ones . . . I'll add this to your list of new tricks, like making troopers burst from the inside out . . . "

The blade was lifted and slung, Harkins shifted his weight backwards - using the SIBAS suits slightly enhanced speed to counter his own movements and withdrew his own Diamond sharpened blade from its leg holster.

Adamantite met molecularly fused titanium and sparks flew as Harkins pulled his wieght back again and went back on the assault - a series of slashing blows followed by a stab at the midsection - moving as fast as his arms and torso could sync with the SIBAS systems - and the Immortal . . . this Loveless parried each blow.

Loveless moved, shifted his weight and grabbed Harkins by the arm, and pulled his own weight in towards his assailant - with an over arm swing, attempting to bring his own blade down through the back of this gutsy Scythians brain.

The Scythian senced the move - and the wrist twisted around 360 degrees . . . these suits where advanced and then some, Loveless thought - his grip faltered and slipped as the Scythian took his chance and buried his own knife deep into Loveless's stomach - pausing for a moment before pulling back and then stabbing again, and again, and again - attempting to stab loveless to death by shredding his innards.

Harkins victory only lasted for a moment as the Immortal bastards wounds started to heal, right in front of his very eyes! He stabbed again and again and again - if nothing else he could try and kill an Immortal through blood loss? Or at least that was the hope anyway.

Loveless grinned . . . this fight was his - eventually all he had to do was wear this one down, and then kill him slowly.

"It's a shame I have to kill you Scythian . . . you have guts, and enough skill to back them up - if we set our standards a little lower, we could make an Immortal out of you!" Loveless slurred as the wounds in his belly healed and the blood coagulated on Harkins knife.

He forced his grip around the arm that held Loveless and twisted - as Harkins attempted to twist it once more, using his own foothold as a counter balance - he flipped the Scythian - power armour and all - over himself and into the ground with a slam, casually followed by withdrawing his assault cannon back out of its holster for the coup de grace.

The Scythian struggled to pull himself up as the pistol was levelled at the back of his head . . . Loveless would end this life with glory . . . finish this battle, return to the fleet and return to his own masters . . .

PAIN. YOU WILL ALL FEEL PAIN INSULENT FILTH.

The voice was everywhere and nowhere at once - words that boomed through silence . . . Loveless felt it first - a hammerblow os psionic force with no beginning or end.

I HAVE AWOKEN. YOU HAVE DEFILED THE GARDEN.

Loveless rolled onto the floor, clutching his head as pain wracked through every sence, every fibre and synapse of his being - he managed to see the Scythian, screaming and vomiting inside his armour as the front plate depolarized into some form of glass viewing section.

I AM THE FIRST MURDER. I AM BEGINNING AND END. THE REAPING IS NIGH

Loveless watched as a skyscraper of the Scythian's city - a tower of red and gray metal dissapeared into the ground, followed by another, and then a city block started to sink as the Ice that made up the underground cavern the city was held in began to crack and open.

The sounds of skittering, citinous hides - thousands of clicking eyes, teeth and mandibles filled the air as Loveless raised his psionic defences - sealing his own mind off against this relentless force.

I AM THE SHRAA-

The voice faded as he cut himself off from the outside world - his abilities and mental silence returned . . . and then he saw them.

Millions of them - bugs as large as a tank - endless legs and eyes. Armed with cybernetic weaponry grafted onto thier very bodies - crawling up the buildings, the walls, the crevices of everything in thier reach like a plauge.

Loveless raised his pistol and expanded its functions once more - Infinity Tech doing its job perfectly as what was a machine pistol reverted back into the sniper rifle he has used to annihalate Scythian armoured columns back at the start of this madness, and opened fire.